Promises Kept
by TempestDash
Summary: The trial of the century reveals more than we ever expected about Shego's history, but how much of it is true and how much is an act? Had we ever seen anything of the real Shego beyond the sarcasm and sharp claws? Kim's investigation leads her into layers of secrecy she may regret having uncovered. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**Promises Kept**

A _Kim Possible_ Story

* * *

**_[Shego]_**

A job fair. That's what it essentially was. Hench Co - this upstart company who's whole marketing strategy was to make crime appear as much like temping as possible - had rented out a small convention center, set up tables, and actually invited goons and thugs to submit resumes to leading men-of-evil.

I shook my head. No, not evil. It was best not to think of them that way if I was going to make a name for myself. They weren't 'evil' and I was no longer 'good.' They were just ... eccentric employers, and I was going to be temping for them.

Shego the Temp. That did _not_ have a good ring to it. I was definitely going to have to negotiate a proper title that wasn't 'Thug #6' or 'Goon B.' Did criminal masterminds like being given the hard line by their prospective employees or should I just appear as nebbish as possible?

No, I couldn't do nebbish if I wanted. If I'm not going to be myself, I might as well go back to being part of Team Go. And that was certainly _not_ going to happen.

The person in line in front of me - a tiny looking kid with a black cloak and yellow tights - finally stepped through the security gate and it became my turn to be vetted by a stunningly muscular man barely fitting into a pinstripe suit. I guess Hench Co's thoughts were if you're going to go big, you might as well go all the way.

"Name?" said the brick wall in a suit that could give Arnold Schwarzenegger a run for his money.

"Shego," I said plainly.

"Got a last name?" asked the giant.

"Nope," I said with a curt shake of the head. The guard was wearing sunglasses, but the strange twist of his head made me think he was rolling his eyes. I couldn't imagine why. It's not like the boy wonder that used to be in front of me gave his real name.

"Reference?"

I blinked. "What?" I asked. "Is my name a reference to something?"

The guard squared himself off against me in a show of imposing strength. Another girl my size might have been intimidated. But I've wrestled my brother down and he had the advantage of meteor-infused super strength. I gave the man a raised eyebrow instead.

"Who referred you to this event?" said the guard.

"Referred me?" I said with a frown. "Nobody. I came on my own."

"Nobody gets in without an approved reference." The guard lifted one arm and spoke into his sleeve. "Background check," he grunted. Less than three seconds later two of this guy's twins showed up and pointed in the direction of a small tent set up outside the convention hall.

"Please," the first twin said with a nod of his head.

I stared at the trio for a second, then at the tent. Then I looked back at them. They seemed to flex their muscles at me as if encouraging me to try something.

I couldn't really let them do a background check on me. Even way out here in Middleton people have probably heard of Team Go, and my look is not exactly off the shelf. It seemed I was at an impasse. Either I let these Hench-men take me into their tent and find out I'm a former hero, or I needed some other way of proving I had a right to be here.

I sighed. I really wanted to make a good impression here, maybe get a few offers, mull them over, take the one most likely to lead me towards a pile of cash larger than the Great Pyramids. Getting thrown out of the event for not passing a background check was less than a good impression. It was downright humiliating. I couldn't let that happen.

I cracked my knuckles and planted my feet. Then I introduced the bodybuilders to my _Green_.

...

I woke up in darkness and stuffed in a dumpster of some sort, or at least it smelled that way. It thankfully wasn't full of much else other than broken down boxes and paper wrappers, with the occasional paper coffee cup for good measure. It was dirty, but not messy, so I managed not to be disgusted with myself for where I ended up. Just disgusted that I had just lost a fight.

I could see an outline of light shaped like a rectangle and presumed that was the lid. I adjusted my position and kicked upwards towards the shape. My heel impacted something that immediately gave way and light flooded in as the lid on the dumpster flew off and to the side. I threw myself over the edge and into slightly cleaner air.

I landed a little uneasily but quickly straightened. I vaguely remembered having taken an extensive beating but it looked like I'd slept off most of the recovery. Not for the first time I thanked that rainbow meteor that gave my slightly-better-than-average healing. And, of course, my _Green_.

The day had ended it seemed, as I saw darkness above the top of the convention center. The light I was standing in was courtesy of a row of street lamps staggered through the alley. The muffled noise indicated that the convention center was still buzzing with activity. Activity that I doubted I'd ever be allowed entry into now, thanks to my ill fated attempt at showing moxie.

I wonder if anyone ever really got any job from only moxie.

I sighed and considered whether I should go it alone, without funds, without connections, without - most importantly - a fence to dispose of stolen goods. It sounded like a lot of work that I wasn't happy to be facing. But I wasn't going back to Team Go.

I heard a man's heels approaching from behind me and I turned with my fists held ready for a second round.

"Woah!" the man - the notably _small_ man - looked startled and backed up a half-step. "Hold on! I don't want to fight!" The voice was nasal and just a touch raspy, and his silhouette had a slight hunch to it.

I kept my guard up and caused the Green to light up so I could get a better look at the newcomer.

He was a strange looking man with a scar, dark eyes, receding hairline, a pony-tail, and wearing a fully buttoned long coat that went to his knees.

The man rose his hand to cover his eyes briefly from the light and then slowly lowered it. He stared with intense eyes at the glow from my hands.

"That is incredible!" he said exuberantly. "How does that work?"

I narrowed my eyes as the strange man. He was smaller than the Austrian quarterbacks from before, but not overly small. In fact, he was probably the same height as me, not that I'm particularly tall. He was, however, obviously weak. His hands were tiny and his arms were only a hair larger.

"I just _does_. What do you want?" I demanded.

"Ah! Well, I saw your little... nnngg, 'demonstration' at the convention and I wanted to talk to you," said the man. He wrung his hands as he spoke, like he was desperately squeezing the words out of them.

"Then talk," I said. I didn't like the way this guy looked. I couldn't imagine what he would offer to a villain as a goon. He wouldn't be able to beat a Pixie Scout in an arm wrestling match.

"Yes, well, I was in a... um, similar situation as you last year and thought I could offer some... assistance," the man finally spit out.

I lowered my arms slightly but kept the Green going in case this guy pulled out a gun or something. "Assistance? You gonna vouch for me to get in?"

"Uh, no, I _can't_ do that, as it turns out." More hand wringing ensued. "'Probation,' you know how it is."

I could imagine.

"Well, so I thought I might do for you the next best thing," said the man. "If you're interested, that is."

"Interested in what?" I asked. "Get to the point!"

"Work!" said the man with a chirp. "I mean, if you're looking for a job, I'm looking for a... bodyguard, as it were."

I stared, then blinked. "What?" I said, unable to contain my disbelief at this situation. He wanted to offer me a job after getting thrown out of the convention? What was this, some sort of losers club? "Who are you?"

"Oh!" the man said suddenly, then began patting down his pockets frantically. He eventually reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small card. He held it out. "Drakken. _Doctor_ Drakken."

I let the Green die out on one hand and took the rectangle. It was very plain, and simply said 'Doctor Drakken' on one side and beneath that it said: 'Evil'.

Great. I've been offered a job by an asylum escapee. I slowly looked up at the man. "'Evil.' Really?"

"Of course," said this Drakken. "Why would you be here if you weren't?"

"I didn't think anyone thought of themselves as actually evil," I said, legitimately confused.

"Why not?" said Drakken with a frown. "Why dance around the issue? The world works, but it would work better if I ruled it. That's pretty much the definition of evil, isn't it?" He narrowed his eyes at me. "If heroes can call themselves good, I'll call myself evil." Then he smiled.

It was a halfway decent wicked smile, actually.

I let the Green die out completely on my other hand, shrouding the man in darkness again. "Do you have a plan?" I asked. "You know, for taking over the world?"

"Oh, yes, several actually," said Drakken gleefully. "I can't wait to see which one works."

I laughed briefly. That was a pleasantly anarchist point of view. Maybe this guy wasn't so demented. Or maybe he was demented in the right way.

"Okay, say I was interested, how well do you pay?" I asked, putting my hand to my chin.

"Er, a little here and there," said Drakken. "I have a trust fund I can pull from until we get established."

I shook my head. "Um, no. I get paid regularly or I don't work at all. This isn't a charity."

Drakken grumbled. "Well, I can probably manage a salary. But it won't be big at first."

I shrugged. Some money was better than none, especially if I was going to be a bodyguard instead of a thief. Speaking off... "And I won't be called a 'bodyguard.'"

"Eh? Why not?"

"Because I'm not one," I said plainly.

"But you just took on eight guys three times your size and nearly won!" said Drakken loudly.

I smiled. I'm glad it looked like I nearly won when I was pretty painfully losing.

"Well, what would you want to be called?" asked Drakken, shaking his head.

"Just Shego. That'll do," I said. I crossed my arms and the flash of white business card caught my eye. Should I press it? Oh, what the hell. Being bold was working so far. "Oh, and I'll want a contract."

"A contract!" said Drakken like it was a curse.

"Signed and notarized," I said. "Can't be too careful these days. I have some provisions around clones I need to be firmly in ink."

"Baah!" grunted Drakken as he began pacing in the dark.

"Do we have a deal?" I asked, holding out my hand without turning on my Green.

Drakken paused in his pace and stared at me. "Shouldn't I be the one saying that?"

"Go ahead if it'll make you feel better," I said with a shrug.

Drakken mulled it over for another few seconds then stepped into the street light and grabbed my hand. "Fine," he said.

I quickly pulled my hand from his grip and stared at his face. "Good god! What's wrong with your skin?" He was blue from head to toe! What the hell was that all about?

Drakken looked bored and rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's nothing. Just a stupid story I'll tell you some day. Suffice to say, don't go to the pharmacy on Tuesday."

I stared. Maybe this wasn't a great idea.

* * *

**_[Kim]_**

I blinked. I hadn't actually heard this story before. I felt a little embarrassed that I had never even bothered to ask. I just supposed that Drakken pulled Shego's name out of phone book one day and then became evil partners. That was a silly idea, of course. They had to have met before becoming a team, I just had never really given it much thought before.

I haven't given much though to Shego at all over the years, honestly, and starting to think if that was maybe a great tragedy.

"So you didn't know what he was planning at first?" a sharp, accusatory voice said. District Attorney Edward Brock was a tall, African American man with short, graying hair, and an impeccably well tailored white and tan three-piece suit. Nothing was out of place on him, and every motion of his large hands seemed deliberate and graceful.

From behind the desk of the prosecution, Brock stared at Shego, who was sitting in the witness box, with just a slight pinch between his brows. Accusatory, as I had said before, with just a touch of impatience.

"I don't think **he** knew what he was planning at that stage," said Shego with a smirk. She was dressed to the nines as well. A dark green suit with lime pinstripes, a black scarf, and expensive heels. She looked more like she was about to go to an expensive dinner than being questioned at trial. Though I'm not quite sure what else I would picture her wearing.

The jury hadn't seemed as impressed as I was. Her femme fatale look had drawn envious glares from some of the younger jury members, and the older ones seemed skeptical of her flippant tone. At least, that how I read the situation. Maybe they were just good at masking their intentions.

"People confuse 'Mad Scientist' and 'Evil Genius'," said Shego, motioning with her two gloved hands. "He was definitely more of the former and much less of the latter."

"What do you mean by that?" asked D.A. Brock.

Shego smirked. "I can't even count the number of times he's sealed up half of his tools in some machine he was elbow deep in. Or the times he'd lost the hovercar. Or locked himself out of his lair." She shrugged. "Somehow he could build a machine that made it rain but he couldn't figure out how to show up on time for a meeting, or get the wrinkles out of his clothes, or even cook a proper meal."

"And that's where you came in?" asked Brock.

Shego looked off into the distance for a couple seconds. "Sure, in a nanny sort of way. I kept his battles with toast from burning down the lab with all my stuff in it."

"So, would you say, without your help, he wouldn't be able to get much accomplished?"

Shego looked at Brock with mild surprise, then smiled broadly. "Oh, come on, Eddie, you have to do better that."

Brock looked to the judge, an Asian woman with shoulder-length dark hair in her mid-fifties. "Your honor?"

Shego didn't wait for the judge to respond. "No, I wouldn't say that, actually. What I would say is that his determination for world domination would have driven him to eventually succeed regardless of my role in things. I just kept the workplace tidy so I didn't have to live in a sty."

"But you helped in his terrorist activities, did you not?" asked Brock.

"Objection!" One of the three almost identically groomed and dressed lawyers sitting at the defense stood up. This one had a goatee. I've forgotten his name so many times I've taken to calling him Curly since he sits last in the row of stooges from Hench Co. "Leading the witness, your honor. The prosecution has not established any terrorist activities that Doctor Drakken was conclusively involved in."

"Sustained," said the judge. She hadn't looked up. This whole trial she'd been mostly taking extensive notes and only looking up at the two bands of lawyers when absolutely necessary. I assumed she was taking notes, anyway. She could have been playing minesweeper for all I knew.

"You assisted Doctor Drakken in his bid to take over the world, as you yourself called it?" said Brock, at a speed slightly slower than normal so we'd all hear his amendments.

"I acted in line with my contract with Drakken," said Shego, diplomatically.

"A contract that you mostly forced onto him," said Brock. He picked up a stack of papers and held it up. "Which is entered as evidence AE."

"It's a necessary safeguard when dealing with mad scientists," explained Shego. "You never know when they might steal a hair sample and start giving you siblings."

Brock lifted his head. "Ah, yes, the 'clone' addendum you were insistent upon. Why is that?"

Shego's brow furrowed and she looked genuinely angry for the first time since stepping into the courtroom. "It's not relevant to this discussion," she growled.

She seemed to startle her lawyers, and Moe stood up and called "Objection! What... uh, where is Mr. Brock going with this? What's the relevance of asking about this addendum?"

"Your honor," said Brock. "The contract specifically defined the terms of Ms. Shego's relationship with Doctor Drakken, a relationship she has just admitted she designed herself. If we are ever going to establish her accountability to the events of May 11th, then we need to know exactly what she was, and was not, obligated to do."

The judge paused in her typing and clicked her mouse in various rhythms for over a minute. Then she looked up and stared Moe. "Overruled." Then her head dipped down and she started typing again.

"Shego?" continued Brock. "Why clones?"

Shego stared back, her angry scowl barely contained by tight jaw. "I had a previous experience with clones that I did not want to repeat," she said. "So I wanted no chance of it happening again."

"What experience was it that this addendum was attempting to avoid?" asked Brock.

"A bad one."

"Your Honor, may I treat Ms. Shego as a hostile witness?" asked Brock.

"Proceed," said the judge without looking up.

Shego narrowed her eyes as the lawyer approached her.

"Are you referring to the incident that occurred five years ago with a Go City criminal named 'The Mathter'?" asked Brock.

Shego growled audibly. "You did not ask about this in pre-trial!"

"Ms. Shego, you must answer the question," insisted Brock.

Shego flicked her eyes towards the judge once then settled back on Brock. "I've dealt with clones more than once," she said. "One of those times was with The Mathter."

"But you didn't say you had previous experiences, just an experience," said Brock. "So which time is the one that bothers you? Is it not the incident where you were 'multiplied' by The Mathter not more than three months before you quit Team Go?"

Shego grew still and she studied Brock carefully.

"Ms. Shego, you will answer the question or I'll find you in contempt of court," said the Judge, again without moving her eyes away from her screen.

"I was indeed multiplied," said Shego slowly. "And I greatly wanted to avoid it happening again."

"Because you didn't get along with your clone," said Brock.

"In a manner of speaking," said Shego.

"And what happened to her?"

Shego hesitated for a few seconds. Kim had never seen her speechless before.

"She is no more," said Shego, evenly. "And yes, as you implied, I grew tired of Team Go after that and eventually ended up at that HenchCo convention I already described."

"So it was this incident with your clone that led you to become partners with Drakken," Brock said.

"It preceded it," Shego said sharply. "It is not the cause."

"But it was the cause of your need to have a contract to govern your relationship with Drakken, was it not?" asked Brock.

"Sure, yeah," nodded Shego.

"A contract you drafted yourself."

"That's right," said Shego.

"And it was then, in accordance with that contract you wrote yourself, that you were in Middleton on May 11th, obligated to assist Drakken in his terrible plan. Isn't that right?"

"I... obligated isn't exactly-"

"You executed that contract in good faith, right?" interrupted Brock. "You expected it to be honored so that your rule about clones would be held. And it was."

"Drakken... did not involve me in any cloning experiments," said Shego, guardedly.

"So you intentionally specified the activities that were acceptable, and they included the events of May 11th?" said Brock.

Shego swallowed and was frowning deeply. "I did," she finally admitted. As Brock turned to walk back towards his chair, she rose her voice. "But I had no idea what he was planning."

"And did you stop him as soon as you **did** know?" asked Brock.

Shego looked away.

"I withdraw the question," said the lawyer with a smirk and headed back to his chair.

* * *

**_[Shego]_**

There are times when you want solitude. I've always been a bit of a loner. Even sharing a lair with Drakken felt like a crowd at times. Back on Team Go, it was like living in Grand Central Station, always someone doing something loud or obnoxious. And with the Wegos, there was any number of extra twins running about.

But after this morning's session of 'The Trial', I really wished I wasn't locked up alone in a silent section of the courthouse jail. The silence was maddening. Even the occasional buzz from the electronic locks on the fire doors was a welcome sound.

Thankfully, just as that prison of quiet was getting to me, the heavy doors into the jail opened, and a short, redheaded girl in a simple blue skirt suit walked in. I moved up to the bars of my cell and looked out, pressing my forehead against the metal.

"Hey, princess," I said with a breath. I was glad to have anyone to talk to.

She looked at me with concern. Her brow was creased with worry; the sides of her lips were turned slightly down. I wondered what part of the testimony had bugged her. Maybe it was the part where I lost a fight with a bunch of HenchCo thugs.

"Are you alright?" she asked cautiously. I guess _all_ of it bugged her.

"Sure, for a girl on trial for assisting in the end of the world." I shrugged and tried to smile. I'm not sure how convincing I was.

"You didn't... I thought it seemed like..." she started sentences twice but finished neither.

"Spit it out, pumpkin. It's not like I can do anything to you from in here."

She frowned just slightly and a bit of the defiant girl I knew surfaced. "You actually **can**. It's not like these bars can stand up to your 'green.'" She waved her fingers like quote marks at the moniker I used in court to refer to my power.

I smirked and finally felt some of the tension that had been following me for the past few weeks melt away. "Not if I want a fair trial I can't. Obviously I could light up every cop and SWAT team member they threw at me if I wanted, but I don't." I sighed. "I want to be here. I want to see this through."

"Why?" she asked somewhat desperately. This was the question I had been waiting for from her for months. The question I'm sure she stayed away to keep from asking. But now it seemed too tempting to ignore.

Ah, Kim Possible. You can do anything but control your own impulses.

"I let something terrible happen," I said with all seriousness to her. "It's not right to let that go."

"You've never taken - uh, I mean, you've never bothered with a trial ever before," said Kim. I had a guess at what she'd just edited out of her sentence, but I let it go.

"I didn't just steal a bunch of tech from companies that could build more, or help protect a plan to do something stupid that was hopeless from the start." I leaned over to look at her straight in the eyes. "Innocent people died because of something I did. A lot of them. Many times more got hurt. This isn't something even I can brush off, princess."

Kim screwed her face up in a look of sheer horror and then turned quickly away. "Oh, **now** you choose to be honorable." She crossed her arms and leaned back against the bars of my cell. She shuddered as if she was barely keeping something in. This was very atypical for the hero, and I admit, I had no idea why it was happening.

I stepped behind her and gently placed my hand on her shoulder. "It'll be alright," I said. I'm not even sure why I said it. It probably wouldn't be. And there was no way I believed it would make her feel any better. That was just... what you said when people were upset.

She shook her head quickly, flinging her strawberry-scented hair against the bars and briefly into my face. "You're not going to get a fair trial," she said angrily.

I sighed. "No, probably not," I said. It was true, there was a upper limit on the amount of tragedy humans could reasonably ignore and I had left that in the dust. There was no chance at all that jury out there was going to be impartial in their verdict.

"They're going to blame everything on you," she said.

"With Drakken gone, they hardly have anyone else," I said.

She looked down at her feet, staring silently. I turned around leaned against the bars as well. We were almost back to back.

"It's not right," she finally said.

"Oh, come on, Kimmie," I said softly.

"I can't let them do that to you," she continued.

"Don't do this," I quietly pleaded.

"For all the things you've done wrong - and you've done things that deserve punishment - but you're not responsible for **this**!" She slammed her fist back against the bars between us.

I swallowed as the cell rattled and then spoke clearly once the sound died away.

"You cannot get in the way of this trial," I said. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

"Why not?" Kim said sharply.

"Because they need it," I said. I felt her move behind me, probably to turn around. "They want to see me burn. They _need_ to see me burn in order to deal with what they went though. They won't be able to move on without it." I grabbed onto the bars behind me. "Without their revenge."

"Who is they?" asked Kim. I could hear her anger clearly. "Why do 'they' get a say?"

"Because they're everyone," I said. "There are no picket lines in front of this courthouse asking for mercy. There are no kind words in the media. They need to crucify someone. And if it's not me, it'll be whoever stands between me and them." I opened my eyes and looked up at he window in the back of my cell. "It'll be you."

"It's **not** right."

"Of course it is," I said, a small smile returning to my lips. "What is 'right' or 'wrong' but what we say it is? If everyone out there says this is the way it should be, then it should be this way."

"No. I can't just let this be or I'll be the one who let evil happen."

My eyes widened at that. It wasn't just the words, it was the sound, the tone of her voice, the conviction. In an instant, I could see the future. Her future.

I turned and looked into her fierce eyes and nearly flinched. "Do not go down with me," I demanded.

"You can't stop me," said Kim.

"I can," I said quickly. "I can plead out to everything, even to Drakken's things, now before you do anything. End the trial. The people don't get their show but they get the blood they want."

"I can still try to affect sentencing," said Kim.

"Don't!" I shouted. "Don't make me fight this. Don't force me to fight justice!"

"This isn't justice!" said Kim loudly.

"This is all that's left!"

Her jaw dropped at my words and I thought, for a moment, that I had broken her. But her scowl returned after half a minute.

"Who **are** you?" she asked. I hadn't really expected that response and was thrown for a moment.

"What?"

"Pleading to be punished?" said Kim. "Talking about honor? Justice? I would never have thought I'd hear this from you."

I shrugged and put on a weak smile. "Things change."

"No, not like this," she said.

"I've never been involved in something so big, it changes your perspective," I explained.

"So much so that you want to die for false justice?" scoffed Kim. "I don't buy it. Something else is going on."

"Nothing is going on," I insisted, but she wasn't even focused on me anymore. Now I was really starting to get worried.

"Is someone blackmailing you?" asked Kim, a little surprised at her own words.

"No," I said clearly.

"Was someone you cared about in the destruction?" asked Kim. "Is there even anyone you care about?"

I had to remind myself silently that I wasn't still under oath.

"Nobody I knew was in the destruction other than Drakken," I said.

"Were you and he...?" she trailed off.

"Ugh, no," I said. "Drakken was... Drakken. I don't think I've ever, even in my darkest days, entertained anything romantic about him. He's... _Drakken_."

"Then what is it? Why are you doing this?" asked Kim. She pointed her finger at me. "Explain why you changed."

"I never changed, this was always who I was," I said. Which was so dangerously close to the truth I probably should have stayed quiet.

"Then what was all the years of stealing and fighting and kidnapping and arguing and-"

"A game!" I shouted at least to shut her up. It worked. She was startled but didn't look convinced so I pressed on. "It was a game to me, okay? Play villain with bad guys, fight the good guys, put on a good show, then kick back at the end of the day with a drink. All in good fun."

"I got pretty badly hurt in your game," said Kim.

"You recovered," I pointed out. "I was careful."

"You also got hurt," she said.

"I can take a beating better than most," I said. "But this? What happened last year? This is no game. I should have noticed sooner. I didn't. I got sloppy."

"You made a mistake," said Kim, confidently.

"How easily you say that," I said, narrowing my eyes. "You want to believe everyone is a hero in hiding. My game was breaking the law, don't forget. This was just the coda."

"So what? You don't care about that, why care about this?"

"It's different," I said.

"It's not! All I see is that suddenly you feel remorse without any explanation. You didn't make Drakken do this, you simply failed to stop him soon enough. Why is _that_ mistake so much worse than the others?"

I stared back. I wished I could tell her everything. I wished I tell her who I really was. But I couldn't. I had made promises. "Because the game has to end. And it should have ended before lives were lost."

Kim looked at me strangely then shook her head and turned to the side. She seemed to be chewing on something mentally.

"Please don't let me be your downfall," I pleaded. "Let this one mis-justice go to preserve what's left."

She grunted something and then started walking towards the door to leave. She didn't give me a second look until she got to the buzzer to request he door be unlocked and hesitated.

"Why couldn't you just lie to me?" she asked. "Tell me you did it with joy and hoped to get away with it. Tell me anything to make believe you actually deserve the monkey court out there?"

Oh, Princess. I have been lying to you. Just not enough, apparently. "Who's to say I haven't been?" I told my lips to smirk at her. I know I did. But it didn't happen. I think I just looked desperate.

She looked at me blankly. "I do," she replied. Then she hit the buzzer and was admitted through the door.

It closed loudly behind her.

* * *

**_[Kim]_**

"I know your intentions are good, but maybe this is for the best?"

I looked at Wade on the screen of my Kimmunicator with the same skepticism I believed I gave Shego. It was preposterous that everyone thought I was so simple minded. Did they think I fought evil for six years on a whim?

"She's hiding something," I said back. "Something is wrong with all of this and we have to find out what it is."

"Something controlling Shego into throwing a trial? That's... got to be something huge." Wade blinked and shook his head. "I can't believe it hadn't already been discovered by the Feds or Global Justice."

I smiled at him. "You're better than all of them, so see if you can find what they missed." He nodded back. "And see if you can't find me a ride to Go City."

"Go City?" asked Wade. "What for?"

"I need to talk to her brothers," I said.

* * *

Author's Notes: NaNoWriMo starts in a few days... that sounds like a _great_ time to start a new story I'll never finish! /sarcasm

_*sigh* _I do honestly wish I could finish the stories I write. I guess I'm just not very dedicated to my craft...

For the record, the genesis of this story comes from a synopsis I wrote but never published called 'Tears from a Rose'. It steals some ideas from other incomplete tales I've started to write, and comes with a heavy dose of mood from some music I've been listening to. Specifically, parts of this chapter were written to 'Breathe Again' and 'Chase The Sun' by Sara Bareilles.

Oh, and "Edward Brock" is not Venom. I hadn't actually realized what I had done there until I was editing...

Let's see if we can get a second chapter out at least, shall we?

Please leave a review if you've enjoyed this so far!


	2. Chapter 2

**Promises Kept**

A _Kim Possible_ Story

Chapter 2

* * *

[Shego]

Whoever created scented shampoo should be locked away.

It's not that I think they smell bad, it's quite the opposite really. There is just such a strong sense memory when it comes to smell and that strong scent of slightly damp hair with just a touch of fruit - strawberry, for instance - it just sticks with you. You find yourself thinking about it long after it's gone. Maybe even obsessing over it.

Men don't quite have the same problem. The artificial 'musk' or whatever the hell they put in shaving cream and cologne is fine, even enjoyable really, but I never really get the urge to bury my nose in it and take a deep breath. It's just not the same.

Maybe it's just not enough strawberry.

Anyway, you didn't ask about that. You asked about how I dealt with other heroes.

First off, you've got to understand that I didn't really hide much from Drakken. He just was so myopically focused on his word domination plans that he never really seemed to realize people might have lives outside of his schemes. So, sure, he didn't know about me and Team Go. It didn't matter. We didn't run into them - at least not initially - and it didn't impact his plans. I was no longer a hero myself, and he had other more pressing obstacles to deal with.

By which, of course, I mean Team Possible.

You would think that a pair of sixteen year old high school students would be barely a worth a minute of consideration when it came to Drakken's ambitions. And sure enough, he didn't give them a second thought... at first.

We ran into them during the Robot Tick-Bomb plan, about a year or two after I teamed up with Drakken. For some reason the scientist I stole the tick designs from called in sixteen year old Kim Possible of Middletown, Who-The-Hell-Cares-Yet instead of, oh, I don't know... the police? The FBI? Anyone actually credentialed to follow up on stolen intellectual property?

Whatever. So Dr. Acari calls in the teen team, and they catch a lucky break and track us to our lair in the Western Caribbean. It's a small island, not really anything special considering what we built up to. Not a lot of space to sneak around so I tag them pretty quickly. Drakken says string'em up over the shark pool - yeah, a shark pool. Drakken can almost recite Austin Powers. The point is, it's no big deal. One and done, and carry on with the villainous way.

Then she came back.

Sure, we'd run into heroes before that point, but they were nobodies. Nothing compared to Team Go. Nothing compared to the villains Team Go used to fight, so I moped up the floor with them and they ran off with their tails between their legs. Sure, the death traps never actually killed anyone, but they were usually a firm enough point not to mess with me.

Kimmie was the exception. She would always be the exception, really. She didn't turn and run, she made another go at it. And honestly? She caught us entirely off-guard such that she ended up with the plans and the prototype. I was so tee'd off I practically brought the lair down on our heads. Actually, no, I did bring it down.

After that, well, it's a familiar story. Or it became one. The point is, though, is that once our paths crossed, everything changed. Drakken was no longer considered bush league. He had a nemesis. HenchCo was returning his calls. Professor Dementor was... well, he was always a jerk, but he was a louder one now.

And I had a rival. One that could go toe to toe with me. I had actually made it to the other side of the hero-villain dynamic. It was great. I had done what I wanted. I had emerged on my own, divorced from my past.

So, yeah, when Team Go showed up next to Kim one day, it was a bit of a shocker.

* * *

I scanned the courtroom again and didn't see her. All morning during my rehearsed testimony she was gone and still hadn't returned for the afternoon session of questioning. Either I actually scared Kimmie off yesterday, or she's out causing trouble. Which, given my luck, means she's absolutely, without a doubt, out causing trouble.

The real question - one that DA Brock would never ask - is what I should do about it. Do I follow through on my threat to change my plea? Or do I see what she comes back with? It's not like she'd uncover eight years of secrecy in one afternoon, right?

"Ms. Shego?"

I looked up and realized I had been ignoring the judge. She had actually deigned to look away from her monitor to peer down at me. I tried not to look startled. I'd been crafting an air of careless disinterest - apart from my brief annoyance yesterday - and I needed to stick with it.

"What was the question?" I said, turning away from the judge and towards Brock.

"That was when Drakken first became aware of the origin of Team Go?" asked the District Attorney.

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess. I explained it all to him afterwards." Between bouts of keeping up my image by painlessly beating on him for 'helping' my brothers get back their powers. I probably wasn't going to win any awards on that front, so I didn't say as much.

"Did he seem particularly interested in any aspect of the story?" asked Brock.

I thought about that for a few moments. Drakken was always filled with questions when things caught his interest. When did it happen? Where did it happen? How did it affect our bodies? What actually happened to the remains of the meteor? Why did my brothers choose to fight crime? Why are there only four colors represented in Team Go when we called it a 'rainbow' meteor?

"He was interested in how we ended up with super powers," I said. "He was still a scientist, he probably wanted to see how it all worked. He was fascinated by the meteor."

"So he could replicate it?" asked Brock.

"What? Our powers?" I asked. "Not that I ever saw him try. Not that he really could without several key ingredients."

"Such as the meteor," said Brock.

I shrugged. "Yeah, that, for one. A place from space to drop it from for another."

"And you never saw him look for any more meteors?" asked Brock.

I shook my head. "Drakken's flights of fancy can last seconds, and this one didn't survive the flight back to our lair. He was onto Syntho-Plasma by then."

"And he didn't bring it up again?"

I frowned. There was clearly something he was trying to get out of me from this line of questioning but I wasn't sure what. "Not that I recall."

"And you never mentioned your clone or any oddities she might have demonstrated?"

I stared. "As I said yesterday, I've never talked about being multiplied until this trial. And I'm a little annoyed you keep bringing it up." I bit my lip to keep from saying more, but all Brock did was silently wait. Waiting for me to say something, I was sure, I just didn't know what. Something incriminating about Drakken's device, but I really had no idea how it connected to this nonsense. All I knew was that he had said something that bothered me and I was not succeeding in keeping it contained.

"And there was nothing odd about my clone," I said firmly.

Brock's eyes sparkled. I thought I couldn't possibly have said what he wanted. But I'd been wrong before.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Brock.

"What do you think I mean?" I said. "There was nothing odd about my clone."

"Does that mean she was the same as you or the opposite?" asked Brock.

I nearly answered him, but my anger had gotten me into enough trouble already.

"She was a clone," I chose to explain. "They all follow the same pattern. They look the same, they act the same, but sooner or later they start spiraling off in some strange obsession and then it's your nightmares come to life." There. That was enough of an answer.

Brock nodded. "And in a few hours they evaporate."

I narrowed my eyes. He knew. How much, though?

"Mathter's multiples only last a few hours before fading," I said.

"And your clone was normal in that regard?" asked Brock.

I bit my lip again.

"Ms. Shego, did your clone fade after a few hours?" Brock asked again.

What could I say? He had to know, or he wouldn't be pressing this question.

"No," I said. "The clone was stable. She didn't fade." I looked down. There was really only one follow up question to that. How would I answer it? I had to lie, but what lie should I give? The one I told the papers? The one I told Mego? The one-

"Why?" asked Brock.

"I -" Wait. That wasn't the question.

"What?" I asked.

"Why didn't she fade?" asked Brock.

"I... I have no idea," I said. I didn't. That was the truth. I honestly never even thought about it. There were much more pressing issues to be concerned with at the time. Like what was I going to be-

"Did the Mathter ever multiply one of your brothers?" asked Brock.

I paused to think for a moment. "No," I said. "Not that I can recall."

"But everyone else he ever multiplied, the clones faded away," said Brock.

"Yeah, far as I knew," I said. "Mego said there were energy requirements that the clone couldn't supply so they didn't last long. I figured that he must have been wrong after it happened to me but I never heard of any others lingering."

"You never considered that your clone was special because of the meteor?" asked Brock.

"The meteor?" I said.

"You are charged with a special energy, correct?" said Brock. "Because of the meteor? You called it your 'green' but all your brothers have it. You glow with energy when you use your abilities."

"We do, but that doesn't have anything to do with anything. I can't power a light bulb on my own," I said.

"Can't you?" asked Brock. "You've used your power to do many things. Could it be why your clone never dissolved?"

"I have no idea!" I said.

"You never thought about it?"

"No!"

"Never discussed it with Drakken?"

"No."

"He never discussed it with you?"

I glared at the jerk. "I literally do not have any idea what this has to do with anything that happened on May 11th."

"You don't?" asked Brock.

"NO!"

"Don't you know what Drakken's device was?" said Brock.

"I don't know, some sort of death ray," I said with a shrug. "They're all non-functional death rays of some sort."

"But this one functioned," said Brock.

I shook my head. "Yeah, this one worked."

"And you have no idea what it was made of?" asked Brock.

"I know I stole some tech from Go City University," I said. "But I don't know how he used it."

"You stole a class J conical isolation device and a phased isolinear compression coil," said Brock as he read from a page on the prosecution's desk.

"Sure, I guess," I said. I never remember the stuff Drakken sends me after. Just where to find it. "From some defunct professor's lab. He wasn't gonna miss them."

"Yes," nodded Brock. "A Dr. Mathew Terse, former research fellow in Go City University's Applied Sciences department and youngest Fields Medal recipient."

"Whatever."

"He disappeared after his research grant was suspended for unethical activities," said Brock.

I laughed. "A Fields Medal recipient performing unethical experiments? What was he trying to do? Kill an equation?"

Brock shrugged. "Possibly. Or he could have been trying to subtract or duplicate a person."

My half-smile faded. "What?"

"Please, Shego, we don't buy your act," said Brock with a dismissive wave. "You can see how everything falls back to you, can't you?"

"Terse was Mathter?" I asked, stunned.

"Of course he was," said Brock. "And of course Drakken knew that when he sent you to retrieve the pieces of his Calcu-laser. He was trying to build his own multiplication device, just like the one used on you."

My lawyers decided to wake up at that point. "Your honor! Is Mr. Brock going to ask a question or tell us a story?"

I tried to interrupt as well. "I never told Drakken-"

"But cloning was old hat already," said Brock loudly. "Besides, as you said they were flawed. But the multiplication device had another use: the near limitless creation of stable matter. More than enough to create the towering monument Drakken wanted, and bury his enemies in endless landslides to defend it. But that feature was only possible with the addition of an another critical piece."

The judge stared down at the lawyer. "Mr. Brock, ask a question now or I'll find you in contempt."

Brock looked squarely at me, ignoring the judge. "Tell us what was missing, Shego."

I swallowed and looked around. Everyone was staring at me. Even the judge was staring, but saying nothing.

"A piece of the meteor?" I ventured.

"A piece of the meteor that created you," said Brock.

I shook my head firmly. "But there's no meteor left! There's only one tiny piece I even know of surviving the impact and that's locked up in..." I stopped. I had to. My brain was finally catching up with what I was saying.

I could see it now. Brock's whole case was laid out before me and I saw it. There was coincidence and chance, questions and doubt, but all of it, everything pointed to me.

I was a fool not to have seen this coming. Not just from Brock, but from Drakken. I left all the pieces of the puzzle lying around just asking to be assembled. I just had no idea it could be used to do this.

"Where was it locked up, Shego?" asked Brock pointedly.

"In Go Tower," I said softly. "In a display case."

"And you have access to Go Tower, do you not?" asked Brock.

"I do."

"It would be easy for you to get it, would it not?" asked Brock.

"It would," I said. "But I didn't."

"And why should we believe that?" asked Brock. "You had access to every part of Drakken's weapon. You had the knowledge of how to build it. You knew what it would do. And Drakken couldn't have learned about it from anyone else. This was your plan."

"It wasn't," I said, but my throat hurt so the words came out scratchy.

"Who then?" asked Brock.

"Mathter?" I tried to say but it came out little more than a whisper.

"In jail, and he's never met Drakken. Who else?"

My lawyers piped up again. "Shego, stop. You don't have to answer."

"Avarius," I offered.

"In jail, and in confinement. He's had no visitors for years."

"Your honor, can we have a recess?" my lawyers were talking again.

"It wasn't me," I said softly. "I would never do this."

"Never hurt someone else? I believe you've already stated otherwise," said Brock.

"No, I would never use that multiplication device," I said.

"Why not?" pressed Brock.

"Because I promised-"

"Shego."

I looked up. The judge was leering down at me. She was frowning deeply. "Stop talking."

I nodded.

The judge turned towards the rest of the court. "We will now break for recess and reconvene tomorrow where the prosecution will be allowed to continue his case."

"I'm done, your honor," said Brock with a smirk.

"Then the defense will have an opportunity for cross." The judge banged her gavel once and then stood up to leave.

I sat there, in the witness box, and trembled.

It was more my fault that I realized. I hadn't just failed to stop Drakken. I had let that damned multiplication device be used again.

A bailiff came over to me and took my arm to lead me back to the jail. I hardly noticed anything as we walked. By the time I had my wits about me again I was sitting in the cell alone.

"Hey!" I shouted to the emptiness, hoping someone was listening. "I need to talk to my lawyers." I waited for a minute and listened. Then I added, "I want to change my plea."

* * *

[Kim]

Go Tower was a bizarre piece of architecture, which was probably pretty dramatic back when it was built nearly a decade ago, but now it was starting to stain and had a few awkward structural additions in recent years as the top of the 'G' started to sag. It was metaphoric, really, reflecting the state of the once famous team that lived in it.

It had been years since I'd been here, just that one time when Avarius had stolen the team's powers and I ended up with super strength. It still looked pristine back then and I had gotten a lift across the bay for free. Today it cost me twelve dollars and a little cajoling to find someone willing to make the trip.

There was less love for Team Go these days since the team receded from the public view. Even less since the connection between Shego and Team Go was revealed to the world during the pre-trial activities. I'd heard there were a few riots outside of the pair of giant letters. There was even scraps of paper and splinters of wood decorating the front lawn, as if someone was only casually interested in cleaning up after a large party.

I knocked on the door firmly and waited. I knew they heard me, their door system would echo the request to enter throughout the tower. It was just a matter of someone coming down to open the way. I think I was was ignored at first, nobody came for at least a half hour, but I could be patient. I wanted answers, and Team Go would at least have some to give.

I knocked again to remind them I wasn't leaving and waited some more. It was over an hour since I had arrived before I heard the splashing sounds. I turned to see the ferry returning to the dock. I appreciated that the captain was looking out for me, but wasn't interested in giving up yet.

I started to jog back down to tell him I wasn't ready when I noticed someone else getting off the ferry. I slowed as the woman waved to the ferryman, received a friendly wave in return, and then the boat motored off.

The woman walked directly towards me with a pleasant smile on her face. She was slightly taller than me with short blonde hair, an angular tanned face, and was wearing a long brown trench coat tied tightly around her thin waist.

"Hi," she said to me when she within speaking range. She had a slightly raspy voice.

"Um, hello," I said, cautiously. I really couldn't even guess what this woman was doing here. Could she had been the girlfriend of one of Shego's brothers?

"You must be the famous Kim Possible," said the woman, still kindly smiling.

"Yeah, that's me," I said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Rose," she said. She motioned towards the steps leading up to the tower. "Can we talk for a bit?"

"I'm sort of in the middle of-"

"I know," nodded Rose. "That's what I want to talk about." She turned and walked past me and over to the steps. She straightened out her coat and sat down.

I stared, but she just waited silently. Eventually I walked over, but didn't sit.

"I really don't understand what the sitch is here," I admitted. "What do you have to do with Team Go?"

"I'm helping out a bit with the extra attention the trial has garnered," said Rose. "Things got a little heated here for a while and I thought they could use the support."

I frowned. "So, like, PR, then?"

"Well, I'm not giving any statements to the press, but it can be hard for them to venture outdoors these days," she said. "I try to make that easier for them. Running errands, working with the police to clear the way if there's trouble. Helping out."

"Why you?" I asked.

She did a strange bob of her head and then shrugged. "We're related."

"Oh," I said, with wide eyes. I'd never heard about Shego's family beyond her brothers. Once again, I'd never even asked.

I came over and sat down beside her. "So, like a cousin?"

She gave a thoughtful look. "It's complicated, but it does it really matter? We're family and I wanted to look out for them. I feel like I'm the only one who's really on their side these days."

I frowned slightly. "Not the only one."

"Really?" asked Rose. "After everything Shego has done, you - a hero - choose to sympathize with her?"

I sighed. "I don't really like those terms anymore. Hero. Villain. It's all subjective."

"That sounds like something Shego would say," said Rose.

"She's not wrong," I said. "It just doesn't excuse what she's done with her life. I don't condone criminal acts."

"Then what has she done to earn this kindness from you?"

I thought back to that jail cell and the strangely distant woman beyond the bars. Not just yesterday, but over the last year as the media came down on her, as the charges piled up, as the search for Drakken ended fruitlessly.

"She feels guilty," I said. "So much guilt it's swallowing her up. For all the times she's tried to kill me I get the feeling that she's never actually thought about what to do if she'd succeed." I shook my head. "No, she even admitted that. She called it a game. But she isn't acting like it was a game."

"What do you think she's feeling, then?" asked Rose.

"Tired," I said without thinking. "Alone. More alone that she's ever been. I heard her story, how she left here, left Team Go, and almost immediately joined up with Drakken. She's never really been this alone."

"She's a bit of a independent person, you know," Rose said to me. "She wants to be alone."

"Sometimes, maybe?" I agreed. "But there's a difference between wanting to do things on your own and having no home. That's what she doesn't have right now: anyplace to call home. She can't come here. Drakken's gone. She can't go anywhere."

"She is in jail," said Rose.

"That's not what I mean," I said, frustrated that my words weren't working for me. "Home is an ideal, a place where you're welcome, even if, for whatever reason, you can't go there now. At least you know it exists. You know there is a place called 'home.'"

I turned and looked up at the large stone tower. "She has no home. No place that will welcome her. That's got to be terrible."

I stared at the cold, gloomy looking building. I wondered if she ever really called this place home. How long has she been running, always looking forward because behind her there was nothing? No structure, no place to land. Nowhere that your duty hasn't already intruded. Nowhere to rest.

I felt slightly sick to my stomach then and I turned away. I found Rose looking at me with a strangely sad expression.

"Are you still talking about Shego?" she asked.

I blinked.

"O-of course," I said before the pause could be noticeable. "That's why I'm here. What else could I be talking about?"

Rose continued to stare for a few seconds before folding her arms on her knees and looking out over the bay. "Do you know you're the second longest consistently active hero in the modern age?"

"Uh, no, I guess not," I said. I wasn't really sure what that even meant.

"It's a hard life," said Rose, nodding slowly. "It destroys any semblance of normalcy. Constant vigilance is exhausting, and the penalty for taking your attention away is severe. It doesn't take long for you to realize there is no exit. There's no way to gracefully step away."

She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. "Violence begets violence. It can only end violently."

I swallowed. I ... couldn't say I hadn't thought these thoughts before. Like when I had to drop out of college.

Like when Ron... left.

Rose looked back over the bay. "You all start so young, it's hard to really understand what you're getting into. The commitment is overwhelming. Many break down and go mad. Many simply lose one day. Perhaps a few stare at the people they fight for years and forget who is the hero and who is the villain. Maybe they decide it doesn't matter anymore."

"Is that..." I asked softly. "Is that what happened to Shego? When she left Team Go?"

Rose sat up again and looked at me with a smile. "No," she said without hesitation. "She took a higher path. She did what nobody I'd ever heard of did before. And it was an original idea, all her own." She looked down slightly. "I didn't even think of it."

"What did she do?" I asked.

Rose's eyes met mine again. "She tried to change the game."

"What?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"She saw the line between her and her enemies," said Rose. "She saw it blurring and turned away. She didn't want to be the one who forgot the difference. So she chose." Rose lifted her brows. "She chose to be the hero who fought for the villains. And she gave up everything to do it."

"I... I don't understand," I said. My mouth was dry.

"The fight had to continue, Kim," said Rose. "But maybe she could control the stakes. Keep the body count down. Reduce the damage. Sometimes it was impossible. The Bueno Nacho thing escalated so fast she didn't have time. But in other cases, other times, she could manipulate her allies. Direct them, subtly, towards someone who had the strength to defeat them."

Rose reached out and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Someone who could do the impossible and keep the game going."

My mouth dropped. "You're saying she ... intentionally turned evil, so she could stop villains."

"Not stop, but guide," said Rose. "Away from the worst outcomes." She patted me on the back and then dropped her hand to her lap. "But now I wonder if that was just delaying the inevitable."

"I'm... not sure I can believe that," I said slowly. "Shego's actually good but pretending to be evil? She's done some nasty things." I thought back over the years of fighting Shego, both with Drakken and alone. Sometimes with others. All the battles won, the plans foiled, the death traps escaped. Surely that wasn't just because Shego was sabotaging them, right?

I mean, I had to have been responsible for some of that, right?

I shivered.

"It can't have been an act," I said more confidently than I felt.

Rose nodded. "It probably wasn't, I'll admit. I'm sure even with her best intentions she got lost in the role from time to time. She's always been quite emotional. But you're still here, so she must at least have been trying."

"If that is all true, why isn't she saying anything?" I asked. "Even if it's not a great defense, she should at least be explaining herself at trial. Instead she's saying nothing and letting herself get railroaded by an insane district attorney. She's not even trying."

Rose frowned again. "She may feel it'd be less painful to be convicted than to tell the truth and be laughed at." She turned her head towards the sky. "Even you find it impossible."

I bit my lip. It wasn't impossible, really, but it was insanely unlikely based on what I'd seen. Even her brothers believed her to be evil. Sure, she helped them get their powers back that one time, and she had actually stopped other people from killing me more than once. And I suppose there were a few Drakken plans that were ruined because she was standing next to something important when I attacked her. But those things were probably just coincidence. Her obsession with fighting me interfering with her villainy.

Though... I suppose so many coincidences were unlikely too, weren't they?

The question was, did I even have it within me to believe Shego could still be trying to be a hero... albeit a flawed, misguided one. Could things have really been worse if she hadn't been there?

"I would be dead if it wasn't for Shego," I found myself saying. "I know she has the capacity to be good. I've seen it. We fought against Warmonga together. But then I've seen her just rebound back every time. Back to the villainy." I shook my head. "I gave up looking for anything good after a while. I was... disappointed."

"Could you try again?" asked Rose. "Now, when she needs a hero most?"

"I am," I said. "That's why I'm here. I'm trying to help her. Maybe... for a different reason, though."

"That's not good enough," Rose said. Her eyes bore into me. Dark green irises that almost glowed with intensity. "It's not enough just to kick that lousy DA to the curb. After this, she'll need help. Help she'll not want to accept. Help she won't get from her brothers."

"She's been my enemy for so long..." I started.

"Maybe. But you've been her only true ally," said Rose. "The only one she could trust to win."

I turned away from her unsettling stare and buried my face in my hands. "This is so surreal." I had no idea what to think. I just kept coming up with reasons why this was crazy, that nobody could possibly believe that Shego was actually trying to do good. Or at least, reduce evil. She was one of the most famous villains around!

And yet... she was the one I always hoped to face when something was going down. She was the one who wasn't crazy. The one who was pragmatic and wouldn't bother with schemes or devices or armies. The one who just wanted to fight one on one.

I wouldn't go so far as to say she had honor, but she seemed to be the only one who really understood what her role was in these things.

I looked back to Rose. "Why me?" I asked. "If you understand all this, why can't you be there for her?"

Rose looked down. "She doesn't want my help. She'd rather we just pretend neither of us existed."

"Why?"

"We have some history too, you know," Rose said with her smile returning. She nodded to herself and stood, brushing the dust from her coat. "So, do you believe me?"

I looked up at her. She was smiling, peaceful, proper. She looked so serene despite us talking about her family being in trouble. Nothing fit about her.

"Who are you, really?" I asked.

She held out a hand to help me up.

"You'll find out," she said. She walked past me and over to the door. She placed her palm beside the entrance and a square panel raised up and flashed green twice. The door began to slide open.

"Even if I believe you," I said as I walked over. "I still don't know how to get her out of this trial."

She folded her hands in front of her. "Don't worry about it. That's the easy part." She breathed out slowly. "I'm so glad I got the chance to meet you." She nodded and turned away from the door and back towards the dock. "Shego picked well."

And without another word, she walked away. I thought about stopping her, about grilling her for more answers, but I didn't really think I'd get them. I never really found out why she was here... other than to talk to me. Was that all?

I turned, reluctantly, away from the mystery that was Rose and towards the open door. Even if she said it was the 'easy part', I still didn't know what to do to get Shego out of this trial. I stepped over the threshold and into Go Tower.

"Hello?" I called out. "Anyone home?"

I walked though the darkened hallway leading from the door towards where I remembered their 'command center' was. The rounded table that they all sat at.

I got nearly to the doorway when Hego dropped down from... somewhere, and landed with a loud thud in front of me. He looked big. Bigger than I remembered. And he was clearly very, very tired.

"Hego," I said, startled.

"Kim Possible," he replied. "We're not in the mood for guests."

I scoffed. "I'm not in the mood for a runaround. I need answers if I'm going to help your sister."

Hego crossed his arms and looked towards the open doorway. "Well, breaking in here isn't making me feel very chatty."

"I didn't break in," I said. "I was let in."

"Hah!" laughed Hego. "Your hacker friend may be able to open the door but it doesn't make you welcome."

"Not Wade," I said. "Your... whatever, "not-cousin", I guess. She let me in."

Hego paused in his angry seething and looked puzzled. "Who?"

I waved behind me. "She wouldn't tell me how she was related. She just called herself Rose."

Hego instantly turned white and his jaw hung open. "Rose?" His eyes slowly drifted up over my head and towards the doorway.

Then in an instant he was moving. He practically leaped over my head and was already running when his feet hit the ground behind me. I turned to see him throw himself out the doorway and onto the lawn.

"ROSE!" he bellowed as I ran to catch up. I found him looking around in a panic, searching the grounds for something. I stared off towards the dock where Rose had been heading but it was empty. I wondered where she went as the ferry certainly hadn't come and gone in the last three minutes.

"ROSE!" Hego called out several times more before sagging and looking at the ground while breathing heavily. Then he turned his gaze towards me and was in my face in a single step.

"Where did she go?" he said - loudly - at me.

"I don't know," I said. "She just left after opening the door."

"What did she look like? What did she say?" Hego said rapidly. "Was she healthy? Did she look alright?"

"She... I don't know, I've never met her before!" I shrugged. "She looked fine. She seemed happy. Even while she talked about Shego."

"She talked about Shego?" Hego said with his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," I said with a frown. This was crazy. "Isn't that what everyone is talking about?" I shook my head and took a step back. "Okay, this has got to stop. What is going on? Who was that? Why is everyone acting insane?"

Hego looked at me like I was an alien then he turned his head out towards the bay as if he was hoping to see Rose bobbing out in the water.

"I thought she was dead," he said quietly.

"Who? Rose?" I asked.

He nodded without looking back at me.

"She looked very un-dead to me," I said.

"Why wouldn't she have ever said anything? Why did she hide?" Hego said. He turned towards me again. "Did she say anything about that? If she's been alive all this time why didn't she contact us? Why ... let us believe that Shego..." he trailed off.

I frowned. "Believe what about Shego?" I asked.

Hego frowned, but it wasn't an angry scowl. He looked almost like Shego did. Filled with guilt and suddenly, terribly alone.

"Shego told us she died," said Hego in a hollow voice. "The day she... left Team Go." He swallowed. "The day she turned evil. We all suspected..." He trailed off.

I squared my feet and grabbed Hego by the shoulders. I looked straight into his eyes so there could be no confusion. I clearly enunciated every word to be sure.

"Who was she?" I asked slowly and deliberately.

Hego hesitated for only a moment. "She was... she is our sister."

"Your... sister?" I asked. That was completely not what I was expecting to hear. "You have two sisters?"

Hego shook his head. "Shego... the Shego you know... is not our sister."

I stared.

"What."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Look! A chapter two! Incredible! So much talking!

You probably have figured out what is going on by now. But in case you haven't, chapter three will be the conclusion that explains everything.

There is no canon name for Mathter, so I gave him a punny one. MATHew TERse. Hey, it's how the show rolls.

My apologies to the lawyers out there who are probably ready to murder me for my abuse of the trial process.

Please drop a review if you enjoyed this! I hope to finish chapter three before New Years so I can at least say I completed SOMETHING this year.


	3. Chapter 3

**Promises Kept**

A Kim Possible Story

Chapter 3 ...

* * *

[Shego]

I stared at the machine sitting in the center of our latest underground lair. It was glowing and twisting in on itself in a not at all normal way. Blue and green and red light it gave off, in rotating colors. It was, perhaps, the prettiest machine Drakken had ever created. I was a little surprised.

"You... made this?" I asked. "You've been taking correspondence classes or something?"

Drakken did his best at a cackle. After all these years he was starting to get somewhat good at it. "Oh, yes, it was quite an effort."

"And it works?" I asked, because... well, I always did. You can never be certain with Drakken.

"It does, I'm quite confident," he grinned widely.

The better part of a decade ago I would have compared him to a child with a new toy. The eagerness was still there now, but the years had turned it somewhat more perverse. His darker eyes, the lines across his face and mouth, it seemed much more sinister than it once did. Less a boy with a treat and more the teenager who'd captured a fly he intended to gleefully pluck the wings off of.

I questioned again what I was doing here and whether it was worth it.

"What's it do?" That was less of a common question, but the device was so... out of step with Drakken's normal M.O. I just had to ask.

"It'll make us kings," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

"I'd prefer queen," I mused. "Maybe princess..."

"Yes," he wrung his hands. "Your 'princess' will try to stop us but I think this time even she will have her hands full."

"That's not what I..." I started, but the gave up. He wasn't really listening to me given how enraptured by the device he was. "What do you mean Princess will have her hands full? What are you planning?"

"You'll see," said Drakken, giggling. It was really disconcerting.

"I don't really like the whole 'shrouded in mystery' sort of schemes, you know," I said. "Last time it ended up with me being kicked into a radio tower during a lightning storm. I had bad hair for a month."

"Hmmm," said Drakken with a half-smile and a finger to his chin. "Is your hair normally frizzy?"

I reached up and ran my hands through my hair almost instinctively. It was it's normal, luxurious, wavy self. "No."

"Must have been the static electricity," said Drakken. "Perhaps I could devise a way to invert that effect, causing all hair to become straight over an area!" He began pacing. "I could make a fortune deploying to fashion shows. Either as a benefit or as ransom!"

"Uhh... okay," I said. "Doesn't really advance the cause of world domination, though."

"Drat," he spat and stopped pacing. He looked at the machine briefly. "What were we doing today?"

"You didn't tell me," I pointed out.

"Right! The secret secrets," he said. "Lets load this bad boy up and go flying." He began marching towards the hovercar. Just as I opened my mouth to protest he turned on his heel and pointed a finger at me. "Don't ask where. I'll give directions." He then turned back and marched away.

To say that was only the start of the oddities of that day is an understatement. I could even joke about it if it wasn't for what happened next.

Next? Of course that was Japan. If you think flying coach is bad, try it in an open air hovercar over the Pacific. Normally I would have taken my jet, but the... device didn't fit. Drakken also can't sit still to save his life.

I stared down at the churning sea just off the coast of one of Japan's southern islands. There was nothing particularly notable about the spot to my eyes. Just one point of ocean among any number of others, with just the dot of land on the horizon.

It was here he pointed his machine at the waves and fired it's colorful ray. There was nothing at first, and I couldn't have been blamed for thinking the device was defective. Then the waters began to boil.

It's a strange sight, to see the oceans boil. It was localized, cover the area directly beneath us and to a couple dozen feet in every direction. But I struggled to understand it. The ocean is _moving_. At any given point it's moving in any of three or more different directions at once. For that much water to be boiling at once, there had to be something incredibly hot happening beneath it.

I realized what it was when the black smoke began to rise up. Drakken quickly turned off his gun and hollered.

"Get us away!" he shouted, but I was already pulling the controls up and to the side. We had to put maximum distance between us and the site of the event if we were to get out unscathed.

We were only a quarter mile away when it erupted.

Lava exploded from the boiling water, flying in all directions, and emitting a shockwave of sound and pressure that flung the hovercar sideways before I could gain control again. As I clung to the panel in front of me I saw the emerging volcano grow rapidly. From a small hill to a tall peak in minutes. I couldn't believe the sight of it. I had just seen a volcano erupt from a few thousand feet away. It was still too close for comfort.

Once we were steady and flying back east as fast as the hovercar could carry us, I turned to Drakken.

"You just made a volcano!" I shouted. It was loud with the wind flying past, and the roar of the eruption was still echoing in my ears. But that wasn't why I was shouting.

"Not just one," said Drakken. He turned and pointed out back towards the volcano. His arm tracked slowly right towards the north. More smoke was sporadically emerging from the ocean.

He turned back to sit on the bench at the back of the hovercar. He smiled with a lopsided grin. "The tectonic disturbance will chain all the way up through the Volcano Islands and spread to the Bonin Islands."

"Are you out of your mind?" I shouted. "There are thousands of people on the Bonin islands!"

Drakken shrugged. "It shouldn't all be destroyed, just enough to keep Kim Possible busy."

I stared at him. "While we do... what?"

"Phase two."

* * *

"Did you know what would happen to Japan?"

I looked up from hands and saw District Attorney Brock staring at me. I blinked a few times, surprised by the interruption. I turned to the judge for some sort of acknowledgement that he was allowed to even ask me questions at this stage. The judge, however, was staring at her computer screen. As usual.

I swallowed and turned my eyes back at Brock. "No," I admitted. "I don't even think Drakken knew. He thought it would all be a distraction for what he was planning in Middleton."

"So you contend that neither he nor you knew it would keep going until it reached Tokyo?" asked Brock.

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. Neither of us were geologists. And if I had any idea I would never have proceeded."

"But you did proceed," said Brock, and I noticed it wasn't at all a question.

"I did," I said. "And that's the guilt I'm pleading to. I knew whatever he was going to do was going to be devastating and I didn't stop him."

"So we should hold you accountable for the millions of dollars of damage to Japan's Ogasawara Islands and the billions already spent in recovery costs to the city of Tokyo?"

"You accepted the bargain," I said. "You can't go back on it unless the judge says so." I looked again at the judge, but she was still taking notes and keeping from making eye contact.

"That deal is contingent on you telling the truth of your involvement," said Brock. "And you're telling me you had no idea what that device would do to Middleton given that it caused a chain reaction of devastation and destruction across Japan?"

"I didn't see that!" I said firmly. "We left as soon as the first volcano established itself. And I had no idea that Drakken would go so far, he'd never committed mass murder before."

"You didn't think opening up a volcano in Middleton would kill people?" Brock said loudly.

"No!" I said. "That's the whole point! He's never gotten that far before. He screws up, or Kim Possible stops him. Or some other villain gets in the way. For years it's been that way. I had no idea it would go any further."

Brock stared at me evenly. "But it did," he said simply.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "It did."

"And you didn't stop him until after he'd fired the machine for a second time," said Brock.

I looked at my hands again. I didn't really want to think about it, but I had to make it through this testimony if this was going to end. "That's right."

"Tell us what you did."

My hands ached. More lies were going to come from my lips. Lies to cover up lies.

I'm so tired.

* * *

[Kim]

_(Twelve hours earlier.)_

I stared at Hego. I stared at him without interruption. Words came from his mouth and I continued to stare at him. He beckoned me back into Go Tower and I still I stared. We were sitting at their command center, across from each other, him in his chair, me in the chair that once belonged to Shego.

Or _some_ Shego.

"What do you want to know?" asked Hego, calmly.

"What do you mean by 'Shego is not your sister'?" I said clearly and slowly.

Hego sighed and reached up to pull off his domino mask. He wiped his eyes gently, removing the black shadow on his eyelids, and then folded his hands on his lap.

"We were only a team for twenty months," he began. His voice was strained as he spoke. It had been that way since he was shouting out for 'Rose' in front of the tower. "It seemed like such a long time."

"Team Go has been around for years," I said.

Hego nodded to this contradiction. "It has, but it has been only in a diminished state. Me, Mego, the Wegos, we do an alright job, but we're only part of a family. We weren't whole without Shego."

I shook my head. I was sympathetic. I truly was. Losing Ron had been painful, and only throwing myself into every single request that came to the website helped dull the pain. The ache was distant now, but manageable. I could still do everything I did as a teenager.

It was just less fun.

"That doesn't explain anything," I said after my momentary reflection.

"I know," said Hego. "I just wanted you to understand that we were a team second. We were a family first." He shrugged. "An unusual family, even before the meteor, but still a loving, united family. Billy, you know as Mego, Joel and Richie, who became Wego, me - I was born as Hector - and Rose... my little sister."

The longing in Hego's voice almost heartbreaking. But I couldn't let myself be carried off in his reverie or there might be no end to this.

"And Rose became Shego," I said.

Hego nodded. "After the meteor fell, and I explained how we should use our powers to be superheroes, Rose took on the name Shego." He leaned forward towards me. "You have to understand, Kim, she was heart of our team."

"The heart?" I said with more skepticism than I intended. Hego winced slightly and I knew I had struck a nerve.

"She was the one who helped us organize, kept us grounded. She was the one who sought out the problems we could solve." Hego groaned. "While I've grown into being a leader, I can admit now that I wasn't very good at it back then. I was worried about the wrong things. Image. Branding. How the media reacted. How the mayor reacted. These things didn't matter to Rose, and she directed us to the needy. The trapped families. The burning fires. Helping with the blizzard that blanketed Go City that first year. I put our name out there, but it was Shego who helped it have meaning. The villains came later."

So much of this was familiar, I realized with a shock. I watched Hego describe the arc of his family's heroism and saw the same path in my own life. The simple helping hand at first. The one voice to answer when everyone else was afraid. The mundane things that grew less and less mundane.

"Twelve months in and we were standing here, on this artificial island, and breaking ground for a monument to our name. It was supposed to be a symbol of hope. That if people needed help, we would be there, you just had to look to the skyline." He frowned. "It was on that day, during that ceremony, that Hellpike first attacked."

Hellpike. A simple villain with a flair for demonic costumes and flaming lances. I remember reading about him. Dr. Lance Heidegger, former professor of mythology at University of Go City, former Olympic javelin contender. He was locked up for good even before I met Team Go for the first time. Still locked up, as far as I knew.

"We fought him off," continued Hego as he wrung his hands. "It wasn't hard for us, we were a good team, and used to working with each other by then. Nobody got seriously hurt, and I saw it as a grand display of our power. I couldn't have planned a better scene. I was excited. Mego was delighted.

"But not Rose," said Hego. He forced his hands to lay flat on the table. "She was all for the Tower until that day, then she turned completely around. She didn't want it to go up anymore. She wanted everything cancelled and for us to vanish back into hiding. Into obscurity."

"Why?" I asked.

"She said it didn't mean the same thing anymore," said Hego. "I was completely incapable of understanding that at the time. I thought she was scared. I was an idiot."

"She wasn't scared?"

Hego shook his head. "Not for her own life, or ours for that matter. She was scared for the city. When we started this, for her it was about helping people, about being the outstretched hand in a time of crisis. But Hellpike changed all of that in an instant. We wouldn't be seen as saviors anymore. We would be seen as a shield. Part of the city's defense."

I nodded. "She was worried people become reliant on you." I can't say that hasn't crossed my mind over the years either. I'm not really sure how I've avoided that, honestly. Maybe it was the knowledge that groups like Global Justice existed. There were others who could deal with villains, it didn't just have to be me. Though I never thought those things when I was high school.

Then again, I haven't even tried to quit. Yet.

"She was worried it would never end," said Hego. "Once you put up a defense you become responsible for it, and you take the blame on the day you decide to lower it. It becomes a cage."

"So she didn't want to do this forever," I concluded. "She wanted to get out."

"Not right away," said Hego. "She voiced her complaints but we were a family. She stuck with us. She was already a sort of defense for the rest of us, and she didn't want to abandon her first duty. But she wasn't excited about it anymore. It began to drag on her. I don't know if Mego or the Wegos noticed, but I did. I just didn't know what to do about it. My indecision put her in danger."

"What happened?" I asked.

Hego looked down at the green wedge of the table I was sitting in front of. "Mathter."

"The one who made a clone of Shego?" I said, recalling some the details from the trial. "Wait, that happened to Rose or the Shego I knew?"

Hego stared at with a strangely disbelieving look. I wasn't quite sure why. "What did I say?"

"Most of the time, Mathter's clones vanish after a half hour or so," Hego said, still giving me that look. "But this one didn't. So we had to figure out what to do with her. It looked like she was going to stick around for the long term."

"The Shego clone?" I asked. Hego nodded. "Shego said at trial that the clone was gone. Was she evil and have to be locked up? She probably would have gotten along swell with the Shego that I ... knew..." I stopped as I put together what he was saying. But the pieces refused to fit properly in my brain. It was too incomprehensible.

"Wait," I said, raising a hand. "What are you saying? You can't be serious."

"We offered her a place on the team," said Hego, continue on despite my questions. "We already had two Wegos, what harm could there be with two Shegos?"

"Are you telling me that Shego - the Shego that I know, that I've fought - isn't _just_ not your sister..." I trailed off with my mouth hanging.

"We thought they were getting along," continued Hego. "They talked long into the night at this very table. Something had to have happened, though, because the next morning, there was only one." He looked me in the eyes. "And she remaining Shego said that she was the clone, and that the original - our sister - was dead."

"No way," I whispered.

"We accused her of being evil, and she readily agreed. She grabbed her costume and left." Hego grimaced. "We even tried to stop her, but... well, you know how Shego is."

I stood up immediately and stepped back from the table, reeling. That was impossible. Shego was a clone? And she killed the first Shego? All this time I've been fighting an evil clone of the real Shego? But... but...

I pointed towards the door. "Then who the hell did I just meet?!"

Hego turned and reached behind him towards the console attached to the large monitor overlooking the table. He pressed a few buttons and brought up a security access log for the front door palm reader. It scrolled through dozens of access attempts before reaching the bottom. The last entry on the list was from a few minutes earlier.

It said SHEGO - ACCESS AUTHORIZED.

"So... what does that mean?" I asked. My mouth was dry.

"It means it's either yet another clone of Shego," said Hego. "Or it was really Rose."

"And she didn't die?" I said. "Shego didn't actually kill her."

"If that was her," said Hego. "Then no. In fact, until last May, she'd never been responsible for anyone dying."

"Then... why did she tell you..." I started to say, but I trailed off. I started to think about what Rose - the one I met just earlier today - had said.

"I don't know," Hego shook his head. "I can't figure it out. Did Shego _think_ that Rose was dead and didn't check? There was no body on the floor that day, so it would have had to be pretty convincing to fool her. But if she hadn't faked it... that meant Shego was in on it."

I was starting to tune Hego out as the conversation played through my head. Rose hadn't been angry with Shego at all, in fact she was worried about her. She seemed excessively worried about her, in fact, more than she should have been for someone on trial for killing hundreds.

"But why make us believe she died?" asked Hego. "And why come back just to turn around and leave without talking to us. Why only talk to _you_? Someone who never knew her before." He looked pleading as he turned towards me. "What did she say to you?"

What _had_ she said? She talked about changing the game. About becoming evil intentionally. She talked about a plan. She talked about...

"She said it would be easy to save Shego from this trial," I said aloud.

Hego blinked. "What?"

I looked up to the security log still displayed on the monitor.

"I think she might be right," I said, piecing at least the last conversation together.

"Why would we want to save-" started Hego, but I turned away from him before he could finish. I started walking towards the door.

"I need to get back to the trial," I said quickly. "I'm sorry, but I have a very small window if I'm ever going to really understand this." I paused at the doorway and looked back. "And... I think I promised to take care of her."

I turned and ran and only was within earshot long enough to hear Hego say, "Take care of whom?"

* * *

[Rose]

Shego looked small. Smaller than she'd ever seemed. As a hero, as villain, as... whatever the people considered her now, she was always proud. Tall.

Not today. Today she was trying to vanish into the chair she was sitting on. It was a dramatically different posture from what she wore yesterday, even as she realized the origin of Drakken's device.

"There's no fault line near to Middleton," Shego said to the slimy District Attorney that was pacing behind the prosecution's desk. "Drakken said that it wouldn't cause the same effect as when we were near Japan. He didn't exactly say what he thought would happen, but the impression was that it would be less powerful or less significant in Middleton."

District Attorney Brock turned to glare at her. "But it _was_ just as bad in the end."

Shego breathed very deliberately. I'd recognized that coping mechanism. She was trying very hard to control her emotions, whatever they might have been at this point.

"It was much worse than he imagined," said Shego. "Because he didn't really know enough about physics."

"And you do?" accused Brock.

"I do now," Shego admitted. "I've researched this considerably since... then." She adjusted her position in her chair and looked almost teacherly. "The sudden and rapid expansion of matter combined with increased mass at the center of the reaction and the fact that he fired at a concrete street where there was no room for growth... well, it heated up rapidly."

"Until...?" prompted Brock.

The muscles in Shego's cheeks flexed. "Until it exploded." She licked her lips nervously.

"A reaction that has been estimated to be equivalent to three kilotons of TNT," supplied Brock. He hadn't even referenced any of the papers on his desk. This was information he knew by heart.

"I guess," said Shego. "I hadn't heard that."

Nether had I. I wondered - not for the first time - if he was the one. I wish I had found the time to investigate more people, but I couldn't even narrow down the suspect list until the trial started, and Shego's attempt at martyrdom here had substantially shorted the window I had.

No, I'd have to leave things to Kim Possible. Which I was beginning to feel quite comfortable with.

"And then?" asked Brock.

Shego looked up at he ceiling of the courtroom as she spoke. I don't know if she was trying to avoid the any looks from the gallery, or if she was trying just to collect her thoughts.

"The shockwave threw us off our feet and only the hovercar's meager auto-balancing helped keep us from being tossed onto the streets," said Shego. "After that, Drakken was all babbling. He was confused, trying to work through the effects of the machine in his head to figure out what had happened. He expected to create a mountain I learned in his diatribe, but instead we had set off a bomb. He was trying to rationalize the effects when the first shots came our way."

Shego looked down again, but avoided the stares of the jury. "Local police had showed up and were trying to take down the hovercar while clearing people away from the fires and molten earth flowing through the street. Drakken's first instinct was to turn the machine on them." She shook her head. "Even after what we had done, he still wasn't even hesitant to turn that device on again. He claimed he could reduce the intensity of the beam and avoid an explosion, but he didn't even understand what had happened.

"No, after seeing that first explosion, I turned the hovercar and ran." Shego looked towards Brock. "Drakken objected, tried to stop me and turn back, but he's a housefly compared to me in strength, there was no hope." She growled slightly. "So he tasered me."

"He what?" asked Brock, sounding surprised.

"He had started carrying a taser a few years back, to help he fight off some of the minor threats," explained Shego. "Mostly the lesser agents of GJ while I was otherwise occupied defending him. I never expected him to have the balls to use it on me, though."

"So he used this taser on you, apparently without you noticing," summarized Brock. He appeared to completely disbelieve that Drakken had tasered Shego. I wondered why. It sounded plausible to me. Why would that minor point stick with him? The crux of the trial was already admitted to, the machine was used, and Shego didn't intervene until afterwards.

"Like I said," Shego replied. "I wasn't expecting it. So I ended up on my face while Drakken wrenched the controls back towards the destruction. He was going to go back and try to recover his plan. Maybe hold the city hostage or something. I don't know what he was thinking at that point. It didn't really matter. I couldn't bear to see that machine get used again."

"Alright," nodded Brock. He'd shifted his weight forward, like he was eager to hear what came next. "So how did you stop him?"

"I punched my fist through the motor compartment, with a little help from my Green," said Shego. "The hovercar couldn't keep itself up and crashed into the steeple of Holy Trinity before landing in the soccer fields behind it." She broadly gestured to the side. "No seatbelts in those things, as I said before. I was thrown almost twenty yards away. Got the wind knocked out of me. When I recovered I took off on foot to hide."

Brock waited a few moments, staring at Shego. His enthusiasm seemed to have dulled, like she'd just killed his pet. "Is that it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Shego.

"What happened to Drakken?" asked Brock.

"I don't know," said Shego with a shrug. "He was gone once I got air back into my lungs, I didn't spend time looking for him."

"Some bodyguard," grumbled Brock. Shego looked at him with surprise but said nothing. "And you haven't heard from him since?"

Shego shook her head.

"And you don't know where he might be?"

Again, Shego shook her head.

This time Brock mumbled something inaudible.

"Your honor, can we assume the district attorney is satisfied?" said Chester, the shorter of Shego's three lawyers from HenchCo.

Brock looked slightly angry but he nodded. "We'll accept this testimony."

Lloyd, the skinny lawyer sitting at Shego's defense turned and looked back into the galley. His eyes moved around until they settled on mine. He tipped his head slightly to the side.

I nodded back. Then reached into my purse for my makeup remover and wig. I quickly began rubbing my face with a cloth.

The judge nodded and looked up from her screen, finally appearing interested in what was going on in her courtroom. "Very well, we will break for-"

"Your honor."

The judge looked towards Shego's lawyers, surprised. She blinked and tilted her head slightly towards the desk.

Lloyd had stood up and had his hands out before him. "If you don't mind, I'd like to ask one question of my client to clarify the her testimony."

The judge eyed Lloyd skeptically, and I wondered if she had seen HenchCo lawyers in her courtroom before and knew better than to let them speak unprompted. There were several seconds where I could hear my heart beating loudly in my ears.

Then the judge nodded. "Proceed," she said.

Lloyd walked in front of the desk and looked at Shego. She looked back with a combination of fear and anger, switching rapidly between the two.

I pulled my wig over my head.

"Shego," said Lloyd. "Do you believe that it is appropriate for you to take the blame for the actions of your clone?"

I stood up.

"What?" said Shego. "What are you talking about?"

"I said," repeated Lloyd. "If you feel you are to blame for something your clone does. Since your clone is just another version of you in a different location."

I moved towards the aisle. A couple of people I bumped into looked at me angrily. Then their eyes widened.

"What does that have to do with anything?" said Shego. She was frowning deeply. "Clones happen all the time, we just call them twins. They're independent people, responsible for their own fates. They deserve to be free from their twin."

Just as I was about to step directly into the open aisle leading up to the bench, someone grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me back. I grabbed their wrist in response and looked back, ready to convince a bailiff or reporter that it's not right to mess with me.

But instead I looked into intense green eyes below furrowed red brows. I was so startled my voice caught in my throat.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" whispered Kim Possible to me in urgent tones. "There's no going back. You won't be able to hide again."

I felt her strength through her words and gaze, felt her fingertips press into my forearm. She was even more powerful than I thought from our meeting at Go Tower. Her determination was a force to be reckoned with.

She was so much better suited to being a hero than I was. And a perfect match for my dear Shego.

"Wouldn't you do it?" I asked softly. "I took the cowards way out all those years ago, and she bore the burden on her own. I can't leave her alone now, when I can finally help."

Kim's expression softened, and she released my arm. Her stare continued but she didn't make any motion to stop me.

"So why are you trying to take credit for your clone now?" asked Lloyd to Shego.

"What?" Shego squawked.

I stepped into the aisle and put my hands on my hips, channeling my inner-Shego for the first time in nearly a decade.

"He's asking why you're testifying for things I did!" I shouted.

The entire courtroom turned to look at me. Everyone was surprised. Everyone except for Lloyd of course.

It didn't quite fit as well as it used to, but my green and black jumpsuit was comfortable. The black wig approximated Shego's hair where I had cut it short so long ago. And without my makeup, my green skin was quite prominent.

You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom.

Then Shego spoke, barely above a whisper. "Rose?"

Then the room exploded into activity as the galley turned and converged on me, the judge began banging her gavel loudly trying to restore order, and I felt Kim Possible step close to watch my back in case anyone else had surprises in store for this trial.

* * *

[Shego]

For the second time I was ushered back to my jail cell in a daze that I could barely recall. But this time I wasn't alone. As soon as the doors were locked and the bailiffs had left, I rushed up to the bars separating my cell from the adjacent one.

They weren't directly adjacent, so I couldn't reach inside. In fact my arm only reached about halfway of the distance between us. But I pressed my forehead against the bars and stretched out. Rose did the same and we could just barely touch our fingertips together.

She looked at me with a kind and peaceful smile that was completely at odds with how I was feeling right now. How could she be so calm? What in the world was she thinking?

I pulled my arm back inside and looked at her.

"Are you crazy?" I asked.

Rose laughed. "Probably. If so, it's a defect we both share." She smiled and looked at me with pride. "Did you mean what you said in there? Clones should have free and independent destinies?"

"Well, doy. But I'm a little biased in that matter," I said. "Being a clone."

Rose shrugged. "Who's to say which one of us is the clone?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, not this again," I said. "It's clear I'm the clone. You were standing when Mathter's beam hit us, and I was on the ground afterwards. I'm the divergence."

"I think you take a little bit of pride in being a clone," said Rose. "But, you know, I don't think we ever considered the idea, back then, that neither of us were the original. Maybe the original was destroyed and we are both copies of her."

"It doesn't matter, Rose," I said clearly. "It's long past mattering. One of us had to be the one responsible for the original's life and we chose you."

Rose shook her head. "I regret that, you know. I think I gave up too easily." She eyed me suspiciously. "And since you knew everything I did, I think you _let_ me do that."

I sighed and stepped back to sit on the bench in my cell. "Of course I let you. We both were burdened by the life, we both wanted out of it. One of us was going to end up giving up more than the other and I decided it would be me."

"And I let you," said Rose softly. "That was our real divergence. And it shaped everything that came after."

I nodded. She wasn't wrong. I just don't see how it could have gone any differently.

I studied her. She had dressed up like me, but clearly didn't have the physique anymore. Not that she was flabby or frail, but she was just as bit thinner, with a sharper jaw.

"You look good," I said.

"I look like you," said Rose with a grin. "Do you compliment a mirror?"

"Dork," I said back. "And you don't look like me. You look like a version of me who had the luxury of living a real life instead of my insanity. I bet you even stair-climb."

"Jog," said Rose with a shake of her head. "Our thighs are big enough."

"Were you wearing makeup before?" I asked.

Rose nodded. "Covers up the green. I have to overdue it, though, to make it thick enough. I end up looking like I have a perpetual tan. Not a terrible look, but I was never really ashamed of our complexion." She shrugged. "I guess I don't have to anymore."

I ran my fingers through some of my hair. "Were you ashamed of our haircut? I can't believe you went all Mrs. Dr. P."

"Who?" said Rose. "I had to make myself look different than you. There were few choices if I wasn't going to have surgery."

"I get that, but did you have to cut off so much? And blonde? Ugh." I shook my head. "At least go red or something."

"Red... like your princess?" asked Rose.

I sighed. I didn't really have the years necessary to explain Kim Possible to Rose. I didn't try.

"I get what you see in her," she said. "We talked yesterday. She didn't know who I was. I guess she does now."

I looked at her skeptically. "You have only skimmed the surface, trust me."

"Why?" asked Rose with an raised eyebrow. "Have you plumbed her depths, then?"

I stared at her and forced my green skin to stay... well green. "Well, that was crass," I said instead.

"But not too off the mark it seems," Rose said with a growing smile. "I'd recognize that jaw clench anywhere."

I coughed. "So, what's going to happen to us next in your grand plan?"

"Grand plan?" said Rose. "Did I have one of those? I though you were the planner. I just do whatever comes to mind."

"Oh, so that's why you conspired with my lawyer to put on a show for the entire courtroom _after_ I had to testify as to what happened on that day."

"There wasn't a good opportunity beforehand," said Rose with a shrug.

"Unbelievable," I said. "You've probably damned us both now."

"I don't think so," said Rose, leaning back against bars of her cell. "I think you're heading for a mistrial. And now that everyone knows about me, the DA will have a harder time trying to figure out which of us was the one with Drakken on that day. They won't be able to do that without some doubt, and if there's doubt, there's a chance a jury won't convict."

"So, a plea bargain," I said. "Not to burst your bubble, but that's exactly where I was yesterday."

"You had no leverage yesterday," said Rose. "Now - together - we'll be able to negotiate a better deal."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. "I don't want a deal, Rose. I deserve to be punished."

"Not like this," said Rose. "I know it seems like everything you've done to control villainy has been undone by the countless people Drakken killed on your watch, but you couldn't have known. Just like Bueno Nacho, he kept you in the dark."

"And just like Bueno Nacho, it was worse than I imagined," I said. "I should have realized by now."

"Shego," said Rose. "Drakken killed those people, not you."

I shook my head. "Rose..." I wasn't sure how to even talk about this. "Even if I could explain away those people, they're not the only reason I deserve this."

* * *

I jerked the control stick to the side and leaned heavily. I saw Drakken tumble to the side as I rolled the hovercar up and over the devastation that damned machine made. Drakken was shouting something, but I couldn't care less. I felt cold and numb. That explosion leveled all the buildings in the surrounding six blocks. People died.

They DIED! And I let it happen. I had blood on my hands.

The hovercar shook violently as we passed over the destruction. What was left of the building was on fire, kicking up black smoke everywhere. If not for the GPS on the dash I'd have no idea where I was going. But at least it prevented those cops from shooting at us.

I looked down over the edge again. No, it wasn't just the buildings on fire. The earth itself was burning with molten stone.

"I thought you said it wouldn't make a volcano here!" I shouted over the sirens coming from all over. Police and fire trucks were racing about trying to find a place to fight the surging flames.

I could see ruined houses below. People's lives scattered between the flames. There were probably people down there too. Families. Children. Some already dead. Some sure to die from the smoke and fires. So many lives ruined...

Drakken tackled me around the waist and I fell as the hovercar struggled to remain level over the heated air. I reached over to grab at him but he was scrambling around like some mutant crab, staying out of my reach.

"What the hell, Dr. D?!" I shouted as I flipped around and then kicked him square in the chest. He rolled back and then quickly recovered, steadying himself on the tipping surface. He looked deranged.

"We have to go back!" he announced. "Defend our territory!"

"Territory?" I said, dumbfounded. "What territory? You destroyed _everything_! There's nothing to defend but a pile of ash and bodies!"

"There was some sort of pressure component I hadn't considered," said Drakken. "I'll get it right with the next shot and then we'll have a tower to defend. I've played enough of these types of games to know how to keep it safe from invaders."

I had no idea how to even process that. "You want to use that damn thing again?" I said. "You'll destroy everything! Hell, who even knows what's going on in Japan right now!"

"We can't back down now, Shego," said Drakken, reaching into his labcoat. He was staying out of my range and I didn't want to throw my plasma balls at him or I might ruin the hovercar. He pulled a silver taser from his pocket. That simple defense that **I** actually recommended he carry.

"This is nuts," I told him. I tried to approach him but he scrambled around to keep at maximum distance from me without falling off the hovercar. "What use is a tower surrounded by nothing but ruin?"

"Nobody will get close then," said Drakken. "And we can force the world to submit to me! If not, our machine will show them what happens if they refuse."

"No," I said loudly. "No. You destroy that machine before it has the chance to malfunction and destroy _us_."

"It has the power to force the world to our demands!"

"Destroy it or I will!" I yelled.

"I won't let you hold me back anymore!" said Drakken with a growl.

I staggered slightly from the hovercar's irregular movement. Or maybe it was because of something else.

"What?" I said, barely audible over the sirens.

"I know what you've been doing!" said Drakken, pointing a tiny clawed finger at me. "You've been sabotaging me! Pushing me down when I could have succeeded years ago!"

My eyes widened but Drakken continued.

"I thought it was just a coincidence! I convinced myself you were soft for Kim Possible! But it's been too long, too consistent! Kim Possible wasn't always there. But _YOU_ were. You were at the source of my failures and the one time I got close enough I could almost taste it was when I hid everything about my plan from you!"

I felt like we were falling but the hovercar was actually managing to stay fairly stable, even though we were essentially flying over molten lava.

"So I tested you!" announced Drakken. "I developed this plan all on my own, without your voice in my ear. And look! Look how far we've gotten!"

I gazed at him in shock. "You... wanted this to happen? You planned this... ruin?"

"Well, the machine clearly needs some calibrations, but we're exactly where I wanted to be," said Drakken.

"How could you want this!?" I cried.

"I'm evil, Shego," Drakken said dismissively. "Please, keep up."

"Evil is perspective!" I said. "Evil doesn't exist. Everyone tries be a hero, they just do it in contrary ways!"

"Oh, please, there are plenty of us who know we're evil," said Drakken. He peeked over the edge of the hovercar to look at the devastation below. "Besides, the fire will clear away the old world in time for my new rule."

My god. Who have I been protecting all these years?

"This is the time, Shego!" announced Drakken. "I can forgive you but you have to choose now! Drop this delusion of being a hero and embrace villainy! Be my partner for real! Together the world will cower at our names! Grovel at our feet! March at our order! Pray to our visage!"

I felt my world crumble around me. Nothing was right anymore.

"Be who you've tried to convince the world you are!" said Drakken, reaching out a hand. "Be a villain with me!"

I stared at him in horror.

Drakken waited for a minute then lowered his hand. "Or just get out of my way."

I took one timid step forward.

Drakken raised an eyebrow. "Coming my way?"

The second step was a little easier.

Drakken's arm reached out again. "Let us ruin this world!"

The third and forth came quicker. Once I'd committed to the path, it was easier to follow.

"Come!" said Drakken pointing to the controls. "Turn us around and we will-"

But he didn't finish.

My hand sticking through his chest made it hard.

His eyes unfocused as she twitched on my arm. He looked to the blackened sky. With his dying breath he only said, "No."

My vision blurred. I think the tears were getting in the way. With a little effort, I flung Drakken's body over the edge and down towards the cooling lava below. His body vanished in a flare of fire.

I staggered over to the controls and pushed them away from the fire, towards the north. I planned on heading into the mountains.

But between my tears and the ash, I couldn't see the church steeple until it was too late.

* * *

[Mathter]

The headline mocked me. So much planning, so many years in the works, all for _nothing_.

"Villainous Sidekick Avoids Death Penalty," said the paper. The article talked up the dramatic revelation of a still living clone and the circus that followed the declaration of a mis-trial after the clone made it clear Shego had been perjuring herself for a substantial portion of her testimony.

Then, inconceivably, she managed to win herself a plea for voluntary manslaughter with no treason charges and a sentence to be carried out in a specialized prison built by some espionage agency at an undisclosed location. Somehow, between the courthouse and the prison, the clone - Rose - managed to escape and vanish. Shego, however, arrived successfully, and was now under the best guard that private funding could buy.

Just like that, she was gone. Slipped from my fingers. I felt like I could go insane.

"Mathter," called out the prison guard. I got up and walked towards her into the isolated room. On the opposite side of the room another door then opened and a man was ushered in and sat down before me.

His arms were bound in chains which were locked to he floor.

I put my briefcase down.

"Mathter," I said to The Original.

"Mr. Brock," said The Original back to me. "I am disappointed to see you in these circumstances. I expected a much better outcome to the trial you chaired."

I glanced at the guard in the room standing by the door I came in. I looked at her forcefully. "Can I have some privacy with my client?" I said.

The guard frowned but then turned and knocked on the door. A moment later it was opened and she walked out.

I turned back to The Original and sighed, reaching up to rub my cheekbones. Even after five years the metal ached. The implants to change my face always became sore when I was tense and that was pretty much the state I'd been in for the last few weeks.

"Don't touch it, you'll only make it worse," said The Original.

"Don't get prissy with me," I snapped. "You think you've had it bad, I've been out here trying to orchestrate our revenge only to be screwed at the last minute by some bad information about Shego's clone."

"I hope you aren't intending to blame _me_ for that," said The Original. "We were the same person when that happened. You have the same memories as me. If you forgot something, then I forget something."

"You seem pretty calm considering what happened," I pointed out.

"What would you have me do?" asked The Original. "You're the one with access, freedom of autonomy, a cushy job at the prosecutor's office. I'm just here to establish your alibi while you were talking with Drakken."

"This was your plan!" I shouted.

"It was our plan," said The Original. "I don't recall you ever objecting to it at our meetings before."

"We last met three years ago!" I said. "Three years of me living this life, acting like a proper man, doing my not-at-all-cushy job well enough to be elected District Attorney, all the while knowing it was a lie. I don't even know who I am anymore."

"You're The Copy," said The Original. "I would imagine you have the sense to realize that you wouldn't have anything at all without me."

I glared at the man in front of me. "I have the sense to realize that Shego was right. A clone does deserve a fate separate from his copy."

The Original narrowed his eyes. "I can make your life inexplicably difficult even from in here, so don't get any crazy ideas. Someday, someone will figure out who you are, and if you don't want me to speed that along any, you'll do what I tell you, _Copy_."

"Go ahead," I said, crossing my arms. "Considering what just happened to my case, I'd say the justice system is particularly well primed to listen to the pleas of clones right now."

"You'll end up in jail like me," said The Original.

"Probably not _just_ like you," I said.

The Original tried to stare me down but I wasn't going to budge. He eventually looked away. I leaned back in my chair, pleased.

"What about our revenge?" said The Original, looking back at me.

"What does it matter?" I said. "So we got beat around a bit and thrown in jail for life. We're villains, we deserved it. We didn't plan well enough. If we had, we wouldn't have gotten caught so many times that they threw away the key."

"We _deserved it_?" asked The Original with a laugh at the end. "You really have been working hard at that job. Do you really believe that? That we owe any modicum of fairness to this system? We are above it. We will prove that."

"Perhaps we should prove it in a better way," I suggested.

The Original looked at me strangely. "Do you have a better plan?"

"No," I said instinctively. Then I considered. "Maybe."

"Let's hear it then," said The Original.

I leaned back in my chair. "You know I've overseen a number of cases involving villains over the years and as a result I've had an awful lot of interaction with someone who might be willing to do a lot for us if we were to give him just the right amount of equipment. Such as, say, the plans for a new calcu-laser."

The Original frowned. "Who?"

I smiled. "Jack Hench."

"The Vendor?" said The Original with disgust. "He's shrewd."

"He's rich," I said. "And money is the real power in this world. Big lasers and bombs are old world thinking."

The Original rubbed his chin for a minute. I wondered how it could take him so long to come to a decision. We had the same brain. We should reach the same conclusions, right?

"Tell me more," said The Original.

* * *

[Kim]

I was led into the apartment by an older Global Justice agent who then quietly backed out and locked the door behind him. It was a cozy place, with browns and reds decorating the walls and the furniture, a long glass coffee table between two chairs and a couch, a small kitchenette, and a large queen-sized bed on the other side of an archway in the bedroom.

And there was a sliding glass door that led out to a veranda overlooking the Swiss mountains. It was there that Shego was sitting on a bench, having her blood drawn by another GJ agent with blonde hair and wearing a white labcoat.

Shego nodded to me as I approached and held up a hand to wait. I did as suggested and studied the collection of DVDs on a shelf. It was filled with family fair, animated shows, and a few older action movies, including more than half of the James Bond collection. I wondered who picked these films out because it certainly wasn't Shego.

A minute later the GJ agent came in from the veranda and smiled as me before leaving through the door I entered in. She was carrying a white plastic case with her as she left.

I turned and headed out to sit on the veranda.

"This is nice," I said when Shego offered no conversation for almost three minutes.

"It's boring," replied Shego, curtly.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"This place is straight out of an IKEA catalog it's so basic," said Shego. "I feel like I'm attending college."

"Did you ever attend college?" I asked. I'd never even bothered to wonder before.

"When would I have had the time for that?" Shego said. She rolled her eyes and turned look back out at the mountains.

"I tried to," I said. "Didn't finish. Not really a lot of ... consistently available time."

"That's what happens when you play the game," she said absently.

"How..." I started, but then stopped myself, wondering if the question was rude. Then I wondered if it mattered if it was rude. Then I wondered what exactly I was supposed to be doing here. Rose hadn't exactly made it clear what she expected from me.

"You get lost in there, pumpkin?"

I looked over to see Shego staring at me.

"Sorry," I said.

"Did you have something to ask?" said Shego.

"I... no," I said.

"No?" Shego sounded disappointed. "Sure?"

"Yes," I said.

"Fine." She shrugged, and turned to look at the mountains again.

A minute passed.

"You know, they've got safeguards here," said Shego. "The cameras are always watching me. They've got these lattices in the walls and floor that absorb my Green. Even these glass doors are shatterproof." She looked down over the edge. "There are even these force projectors that will grab anyone who tries to leave from the patio. Up, down, or out."

I nodded, unsure what to say about her cage.

"Yup, I could throw you right off this balcony and you'd be fine," said Shego. She looked at me with a grin. "Want to test it?"

"Uh, no," I said. "I would not like to be thrown from a balcony."

"Spoil-sport," said Shego. She didn't look disappointed, though.

I stared at her. "Why did you just tell me that?" I asked.

"Why?" She replied. "So you understand there's nothing I can do to you in here." She hesitated. "Nothing violent anyway." She looked a little awkward, almost like she was bashful. But that was impossible.

"So," she said after returning her posture to normal. "What were you going to ask before?"

I licked my lips and tired to figure out how to phrase it politely. "All this time, as Drakken's partner, and as an independent, how much were you... being you?"

"And how much was an act?" Shego said, completing my thought. She breathed out loudly and stood up. She walked slowly to one end of the balcony and then turned around. She leaned against the railing.

She held up a hand. "In some ways, none of it was an act," she said. "I did what I had to do to keep the villains in line. I know Rose explained some of this to you, so I won't repeat her. I chose to do what I did, and while I couldn't have walked away, I could have changed my attitude if I wanted to. I didn't."

She spread her arms. "So this is me, princess, the same Shego you've always known. I don't like ceremony, I hate fakers, and I have very little patience for idiocy."

She wrapped her arms around her sides. "In other ways, I've never let myself look back at who I was before, and so I've never been myself since that day." She looked to the side, into the sliding glass door. It was darker inside so it showed her reflection.

"I don't like ceremony because it reminds me of what I gave up. I don't like fakers because I was giving up all of my peace for the greater good and if others aren't doing at least that much I don't want to look at them. And I have been, for far too long, tolerating an idiot, who was smarter than he let on."

She looked down. "Now that both sides of me are exposed - even if only to you - I'm lost. Who am I? I have no idea anymore."

She turned away from her reflection and let her hands fall. "So now I have a question for you." She looked at me with a frown. "What are you doing here?"

I nodded, if only to acknowledge the question while I bought time to think. Why was I here? Only because Rose asked me to 'take care of her'? No. I think I would be here regardless.

Did I feel sorry for her? I'm not sure. I don't think that's quite the reason. She went through a hardship but she invited it on herself, and she built up the hammer that fell on her every day she fought me pretending to be - or actually being - a villain helping Drakken. No, she knew the cost to doing what she did, and she should have prepared herself for it. I don't feel sorry for her, or pity.

So, why?

I guess, I respect her. Ever since learning about Rose and the choice Shego made to protect, a thought has been going through my head over and over again.

Would I do the same thing in her situation?

_Have_ I done the same thing already?

"I don't think I have an easy answer for you," I said. I swallowed. "There have been times in my life - long periods of time, in fact - where I have been completely disconnected from the other people I know. Obviously Ron felt that way too. But even Wade can't see everything I do. My parents don't appreciate what I've dedicated my life to do, so they couldn't respect my decision to drop out of college. My friends... they get just a slice of my life and they think they know me. And over the years I've watched that slice get smaller and smaller."

"I have my regrets," I continued. "But I don't dwell on them. I made the choices I had to make at the times I made them. And while I could have wished to have led a more sane life, I don't imagine for a second that I would have been happier ignoring all this."

I stood up and walked over to Shego, getting just out of arms reach. I leaned to my side against the sliding glass door. "And there's you. You aren't a friend, you're mostly supposed to be my enemy, and you also really know just a slice of me. But there are times I see beyond the battles we've been in, the times between fights, the times after the fights are over and the lair hasn't blown up yet. In those times, I sometimes see in you... myself."

Shego's eyes widened at me and I turned slightly away to avoid her stare. I didn't want to feel that pressure on me.

"Rose said to me something," I said to Shego's reflection. "And she was only really guessing, but I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to hear it from you." I breathed slowly. "All those fights, some I brought to you, but others you brought to me. Why? Why was it me that you kept coming back to?"

Shego's reflection shifted her weight a little. After a moment, she even started to reach out a hand towards my shoulder, but then she stopped and retracted it, leaving it resting on her elbow. I was starting to think she wouldn't answer at all when she cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

"You could beat them," she said.

I turned, then, to watch her face as she spoke. If she was going to lie to me, I wanted to see it.

"GJ has some good days, and Team Go has some more," said Shego, looking straight into my eyes. "But Kim Possible always wins in the end. Who else could I ever trust to stop the villains I couldn't?"

Was that honesty? Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see?

I'm so tired. I really don't care anymore.

"I'm here because I think you're the only person I understand," I said. "And being here makes my life just a little bit more manageable."

Shego looked at me, seemingly frozen.

Then there was just a slight twitch of her lip downwards. Her eyes were wet.

"I... I killed Drakken," she said.

I nodded. I didn't know she had, but I could hardly say it mattered at this point.

"I understand," I said.

Then she broke down in tears. I went to her side to hold her as she sobbed.

* * *

[Hego]

We stood on the lawn in front of Go Tower as Mego pulled off his mask and became Billy again. He laid the material in the shoebox that I provided. My own mask was already lying in there.

"You sure about this?" asked the Wegos, each say half the sentence.

"Yeah," I said.

Then they smiled. And Joel and Richie were standing there, dropping their masks into the box. They pulled on their jackets, covering the red and black jumpsuits, and turned to look up at the tower.

"She was a good home," said Joel.

"For a while, anyway," said Richie.

Billy nodded. He pulled a sweater over his head and then stuck his hands in his pocket. "But it became a prison after a while," he said.

I nodded. "Not just for us," I said.

My brothers stood there, looking at the stone edifice. For once, I looked upon it and saw it for what it was. Just a building. One that had outlived its purpose.

"You understand the plan?" I asked.

"What little there is," said Billy with a nod.

"We separate," said Joel.

"We make new lives," said Richie.

"And we find out what it means to be... us," I said.

We all stood there a moment more. Then Billy sneezed. "You know, it is not exactly summer weather."

I laughed. We all did. Then, when the chuckles were over, I picked up the box and walked it over to the tower. The door was standing open, the power had been shut off by Richie over an hour ago. I threw the box into the opening.

"Ready?" I asked.

They all nodded.

I let the power of the meteorite flow through me, felt my muscles expand and become powerful. Then I turned and punched the foundation of the tower.

With a deafening crack the rock split open and spidered across the face. Another crack sounded as the weight began to push down on the weakened stone and foundation. Steel supports were crushed under weight they never expected to hold.

Then, as magnificently as it once stood, it fell, crumbling into itself.

I ran clear of the debris and made sure my brothers were protected from anything that flew out. It only took a few minutes for the dust to settle.

I turned, hugged each of my brothers in turn, and then we each got onto boats and sailed off in different directions.

New directions.

My name is Hector. I have a gift. It's a power. It can be used as a weapon, or it can be used as a shield. The question, is how can I avoid it's overuse.

I wish I could have understood what Rose was telling me as a child. But I'm starting to get it.

I spent a long time trying to be a *super*hero.

Now I'm going to be just a hero.

** END **

Author's Notes:

I don't have much to say right now. Pouring 90% of this chapter out in a day kind of drained me. Maybe I'll update this section at a later date.

If you liked this, hated this, or just feel ambivalent about it, please leave a review so I know. Maybe next time I'll get better!


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